End of the season trips

The last week of the season has often been very good to me in terms of bigger fish and I was hoping that it would be a similar story this time around and booked a couple of days off work in anticipation. I had originally planned on perch fishing for the last few trips but suddenly every man and his dog seemed to be fishing for them and, even worse for me, my favourite stretch of river was proving to be extremely popular this year thanks to a few high profile newspaper stories involving perch captures from said river. Somewhat disgruntled I decided to bin the perch idea off altogether and try something else.

At the back end of last summer I found a lovely little pond in Staffordshire with some nice carp in and seeing as it seemed quite prolific I had it earmarked as a bit of a winter water. Unfortunately I never got round to fishing it in winter proper but seeing as I couldn't get it out of my mind I decided to give it a go.

As expected, upon my arrival, the lake was empty and didn't look like it had been fished much at all over the winter. I setup on the main body of the pool as I figured this would give me a good vantage point to spot any fish movement should it occur.

The weather decided to take a turn for the worse as the morning progressed and my maggot hookbaits remained untouched by the fish although the local tufted duck population seemed rather partial to them! Just after lunchtime I decided to reel in and have a mooch around to see if I could find any clues to the whereabouts of the fish.

The water was pretty clear and it was obvious that there wasn't much happening in the margins, that is until I arrived at the far corner of the lake and the water there was noticeably cloudy. Although it was the shallowest part of the lake, it was also the most sheltered and on the back of the cold wind to boot. There hadn't been any bird activity over there all day either so it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out there might be a few fish moving over there. I rushed back to fetch my kit sharpish but at this point divine intervention occurred and the heavens opened proper. I cowered under my brolly to wait it out but 30minutes later it was still going strong and I had seriously lost my enthusiasm to move! Shortly after that I decided to pack up on the next lull in the downpour and return on a better day!

The next day I wanted to fish for Chub on the Trent as I felt I had neglected them way too much this season and first light saw me stepping out on the bank and forging a path to my favourite haunts. The weather was in complete contrast to the previous day being bright and sunny if a little cold, good conditions I hoped.

The first spot I picked was my total banker swim, how quickly and how many I caught here would be a good indication of how the day would pan out. It didn't take long to get some interest either as my mashed bread and flake combo proved too tempting for the first fish of the day, a lively 3lber which gleamed nicely in the early morning sunshine.

A bumped fish on my next cast quietened the swim down somewhat and it took around 20mins before I had another pull. This fish was slightly bigger than the previous by the look of it but I never got chance to find out how big exactly because a large pike walloped it right at my feet and broke me off, a move was definately called for!

My next two swims never produced a rap despite being reliable spots in the past and the third gave me a missed bite within a minute of casting in then nothing else. I was somewhat disheartened and decided try one last spot before upping sticks to a new bit of river. It was very shallow but there was a distinctive crease in the flow where it came off the side of a gravel bar into slightly deeper water.

Ten minutes after casting in the rod tip tapped a couple of times and I hit into a decent Chub which was well over 4lb. It had a nasty looking wound on its side so I put it back ASAP without weighing and quickly got cast back in. Another ten minutes later and I found myself playing a heavy fish which stayed out in the flow, it kept me guessing right to the end and the hoped for monster chub suddenly became a Bream which was most surprising considering the scrap it put up!

A move to a new stretch followed and rather than trying my usual swims up there I decided to look for new spots in the shallower areas. The decision paid off aswell and I went on to take several more nice chub over the course of the afternoon.

Just before packing up I had a swimfeeder taken by a sizeable pike on the retrieve. The fish bit me off but was certainly large enough for me to start making plans to come down and catch it on my next trip out!

The following Friday I found myself setting up in the same swim armed with the dead baiting gear. It was a fairly tight swim so I opted to Floatfish a sardine under the rod tip. Unbelievably, as I was plumbing the depth, a jack hit my float and bit me off! The pike must've been really hungry in this swim!!

Once I got fishing properly I noticed that the river was starting to colour up and after a biteless hour it really was quite brown and starting to rise. The previous nights rain must've been heavier than I thought . I decided to move swim to some more sheltered water but before I did so I had a couple of casts with a small shad on the the lure rod. A gentle tug from deep in the murk at my feet had me striking into something heavy and I was pleased to see a very large pike break the surface like a crocodile. It had to be the same fish from the week before and having had a good look at it I knew it was a good upper double, maybe bigger. At that point it decided to wake up and one shake of its head had my shad flying out of its mouth and into the grass at my feet before, with a flick of its tail, it sloped back off out of sight, I was well gutted!

I did get a consolation Perch of over 2lb on the shad a short while later but the river was coming up fast and I didn't hang around for long before heading home with plans to fish the Soar for pike the following day which also happened to be the last day of the season.

I wanted to finish the season with a few fish under my belt so I headed to my favourite pike runs area where I knew I'd get at least some sort of action. The weather was surprisingly cold but fortunately the soar was running low and clear which was in total contrast to the Trent which by now was carrying nearly 3ft!

It took around half an hour to get some interest but I managed to lose the first two fish which picked up my baits to hookpulls. The third run I had more luck with and promptly went on to land my first pug nosed pike from the river which looked about 6lb.

 

It was obvious these fish were finicky feeders after being regularly fished for all winter, two fish lost to hookpulls and a third barely hooked at all had me thinking about my rigs. After two dropped runs on my conventionally hooked bait on the downstreamer I decided to drop a hair-rigged bait on the same spot. It was away within a couple of minutes and I managed to land the culprit successfully, properly hooked it was too!

 

Another jack to the same rod half an hour later had me thinking I'd cracked it but the local rowing club soon started up their usual Saturday morning activities and my action was killed stone dead. I was pleased to get a few fish anyway and an early packup at lunchtime was to herald the end of my river fishing season. I've certainly had better seasons but as long as I keep getting my string pulled there's no such thing as a bad season!

Now, a couple of weeks into the closed season I find myself in the doldrums slightly as the water is still a little too cold for the summer species to feed with any vigour and the canals suddenly have lots of boat traffic which makes them slightly more tricky on the lures due to the coloured water. I need a plan of action methinks..............

 

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Back to Blithfield

After last autumns successful perch trials the management at Blithfield res decided to release a couple more dates so last weekend saw me headed back over there to do battle once more. Phil was to be my boat partner this time around and seeing as this was his first time out on a trout ressie I was praying for a good day to whet his appetite for future trips.

 

As we approached the lake it didn't look too bad but as we got closer I was slightly disappointed that there was a good chop on. Being relatively inexperienced at boat fishing myself I had visions of spending most of the day wrestling with the boat in the wind but in the event, although we were drifting a little too quickly for my liking, the drogue did it's job and it wasn't too bad.

The fishing itself proved to be a pretty slow burner and although we were getting a few taps we were struggling to connect with anything. My first fish came after I had put the rod down and reached for a sandwich. Phil pointed out that my rod tip was pulling over at an alarming rate and I turned around and struck into a small but feisty Perch.

 

After that we fished on with more confidence and actually managed to catch a few even though we were still missing a fair few plucks from the depths. I'd say it was prolific but I'd be lying, there was just enough action to keep the interest up but at least we were getting our string pulled.

 

 

Small red Berkeley minnows and silver savage gear minnows seemed to produce most pulls. At one point I hooked what I though was to be a proper mansize perch but it turned out to be a lively overwintered rainbow trout, a pleasing result on the ultralite outfit.

 

We seemed to find a better stamp of fish later on in the day but the fishing didn't get any easier. Nevertheless Phil and I both enjoyed ourselves and the quicker the autumn arrives so we can get on the other midlands ressies the better!

 

 

 

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It's been a while!

Oh dear! It's been so long since my last post I'd almost forgotten I even had a blog! Even now I'm struggling to remember what I got up to 6-7weeks ago! To be honest with all the crappy cold weather I don't think you've missed much. I've spent 99% of my fishing time lure fishing still but with everywhere being iced-up, snowed under or flooded it's certainly been a struggle. Heres some pics with brief descriptions to bring you up to date anyway;

 

This little chap brightened up a miserable, snowbound Christmas. I had great fishing plans for the Xmas break but it snowed on Boxing Day and wrecked everything. Little did I know it was to be the start of a tough few weeks on the fishing front!

 

A spot of Piking on a local pit proved unproductive and, seeing as I really didn't fancy chub or grayling fishing, I resolved to try a few new waters for Perch in a bid to find some fresh specimens.

 

 

A park lake I'd been tipped off about yielded one or two fish and in hindsight I should've stuck with it but I really had my heart set on the canals even though I knew I'd be in for a grueller.

 

 

During my non-fishing time I decided to have a play about making some dropshot lures. Some of you may already know I work as CNC programmer so I have access to some pretty tasty kit for making molds and after playing about with some different designs I soon knocked up a couple of molds.

 

The end results were pretty good and in the pic above you can see how my pink creation measures up to an Ecogear grub.

 

As you can see, the pink grub does the business too! I kid you not, this little zed picked up the lure on my very first cast with it!

 

I've caught one or too chub lately on the dropshot gear too which I find slightly unusual because of the bitterly cold weather, I always thought they were more inclined to hit lures during the summer months?

I managed a pb thingumajig the other day too, not sure what it is but it pulled well on the ultralite gear!

A spur of the moment decision to hit a local lake on my way home from the canal the other day paid off with a good result. Despite trying the lake numerous times I've never had any decent sized perch from it so I was well chuffed to land on the fish above which is the biggest I've had from the pool by a country mile!

After spending way too much time lure fishing of late I decided to switch to bait fishing in a bid to catch a proper one. The first trip out gave me a blank but it was to be second time lucky when an after work session threw up this 3lb2oz fish.

Think I'm going to leave the lures for a bit now till the closed season, I've missed on on way more action than I should have this winter due to my lure fascination. In all honesty though I've not had the urge to bait fish until now anyway.

That, I think, pretty much brings me up to date, I'll try not to leave it so long next time!

 

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Last one of 2014

I've been all too aware that my posts have been most infrequent of late and I've decided that I really must try harder in 2015. As usual , life has gotten in the way and my blog has really been overlooked this year as is obvious from looking at my annual post count compared to previous years.

So what have I been up to since my last update? Well, the lure thing has continued it's hold over me and the back end of November saw me taking part in the Perch fishing trials on Blithfield res in the company of Steve Collett. We were quite lucky weatherwise and although it was chilly it wasn't too windy so we managed to set up some lovely drifts.

The bottom of that lake must be carpeted with Perch in much the same way that Rutland is heaving with Zander! We had loads of action dropshotting tiny lures in around 30-40ft of water, fish to mid-2 pulled our strings and I even managed a rogue trout. The average size wasn't great but it was good practice and you never knew what size was going hit the lure next. Heres a few pics anyway;

A jig fishing session on the Soar followed on from Blithfield and although it took me a while to find some fish, when I did it got hectic! I managed around 20 perch and a couple of jacks in the space of an hour or so. A few days later we had some hefty rainfall and that put paid to my river chances for the rest of December to date.

It got cold aswell and I thought that would be it on the lure front but an afternoon session on a local pool yielded a few small Perch to ultra-tiny grub type lures which was encouraging especially as the pool is noted for switching off once the weather cools.

It occurred to me I'd not done any chub fishing this winter and I found myself with a hankering to get out and quivertip some bread. I really couldn't muster up any enthusiasm to fish my usual haunts even though I knew I'd get a few and be in with a chance of a lump. I had a look through some of my club tickets to see what else was about and soon found a couple of interesting leads. One was a small river and the other a brook, both held Chub that much was certain but I'd never even seen either before let alone fished them, my angling juices were well and truly intrigued.

The river was up first and upon our arrival I was a little disappointed to see it coloured and it looked to be carrying a few inches too. It looked pretty damn Chubby though and it was also deceptively deep, my first swim being around 5-6ft. It was also surprisingly lacking in the fish department too as one missed bite in the first hour testified! It was bitterly cold though so I wasn't expecting to set records.

A move upstream was called for and after a passing dog walker informed us we were wasting our time 'cos the Cormorants and Otters have wiped the place out' Phil and I weren't exactly stoked with confidence! Our main problem was finding potential fish holding swims because there was long stretches of fast shallow water and it seemed all the deeper slower areas were overgrown with trees and unfishable. We did manage to find a couple of swims in the end though and I caught four small Chub which proved there was still fish there afterall!

 

After that we retired to the warmth of the truck and headed 20miles up the road into Derbyshire and the brook we had our eye on. This proved to be much the same as the river in width and colour but was much shallower. Again we struggled to find some fish and it wasn't until the last couple of swims we tried when we started to catch. I only managed a Roach and a couple of Chub but I felt I'd really had to work for them that's for sure!

The most recent trip was to commercial in search of Perch and although I planned to bait fish I also look the lure rod along just in case! It was wasn't cold but it was windy and after trying the dropshot for nothing more than a couple of taps I switched to worm and prawn. A couple of carp hooked early on certainly pulled my string but the perch were noticeable by their absence.

I switched back to the dropshot gear and managed to catch a couple of tiddlers and aswell as getting a few other enquiries but it proved to be exceptionally snaggy where they were so I gave it up as a bad job and carried on with the bait fishing. I used worms only seeing as the prawns were carp magnets and eventually managed to snare a nice Perch of a tad over 2lb.

So that's about it for 2014, not a bad year but not exactly exceptional either. I do have a couple of trips planned before the new year so hopefully I'll have something to blog about next time! In the meantime, merry Christmas everybody and have a happy new year!

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Autumn sessions

Since my last entry I've done quite a bit of fishing, in fact , as I sit here and write I'm struggling to remember it all! The weather has definately taken a turn for the worse of late and autumn is well and truly upon us. For the most part I've been doing a lot of lure fishing as that side of things seems to have taken on a whole new lease of life for me, more on that shortly however. In the meantime to kick things off I'll talk a little bit about a grayling session on the Dove around three weeks ago.

As expected, Phil and I had the whole stretch to ourselves upon our arrival and the fishing started off in a promising way with a lovely Chub falling to phils rod within minutes. After that we really struggled in a couple of swims which was quite surprising really as the fish seemed quite active. A strong and cold wind got up which didn't help the situation but eventually I found a swim where I could sit with my back to it. Bites were hard to come by to begin with but I was reluctant to move and decided to stay put and keep the feed going in. This soon began to pay off as a succession of small grayling and trout steadily came to my rod. After an hour or so I suddenly realised my catch rate was really picking up as was the size of the fish, the more maggots I put in the river the more I was catching. It was one those times when everything seems to fall into place and a nice rhythm was established, cast, bait,wait 30secs, catch, cast, bait, wait 30secs,catch, lovely!

Every fish I caught was full of maggots so they were obviously really having it, even a flotilla of passing canoes didn't dampen their appetite! I lost count of how many I caught, grayling nudging 2lb and trout to over 3lb all came to the net over the next couple of hours before, eventually, I managed to exhaust my maggot supply and was forced to pack up. Nothing big was caught but it was a great days fishing and the beautifully marked trout in the pic below was probably my favourite fish of the trip, a proper wild stunner!

 

After that trip I had a bit of a mishap with my car exhaust so decided to book a day off work to sort it out with a view to maybe squeeze some fishing in aswell. As you probably know by now, I like to lure fish whenever I get a limited window to fish as this technique requires absolutely no preparation and you are fishing the second the lure hits the water. Today was no exception and I headed to a local canal with nothing more than a few bits to do some dropshotting.

The water was fairly murky but it didn't take long to find a few Perch, only little ones but plenty of them. I found the best lure was a little panic minnow but it was the last I had and I was gutted when something nipped the tail of it! It did some damage of its own though as you can see below.

 

The pike seemed very active today for some reason aswell and they took a liking to the dropshot lures.

 

After catching a couple of jacks and getting bitten off I decided to incorporate a trace into my rig. This had the instant effect of putting the perch off but I still managed a couple more pike including a nice one which must've been approaching double figures.

 

 

After that I headed back to pick up the car well pleased with the mornings action. I did have another dropshotting session on a local pool a couple of days later and managed another load of small perch. The water was crystal clear and it was great fun watching the perch attack the lure, such aggressive little buggers!

The next fishing trip proper was to a large reservoir with Roach being the target. Despite it only being a short distance from home I'd never fished it before so was totally unsure as to what to expect other than that the roach averaged a good size.

It was absolutely chucking it down when we arrived but even so the lake itself was still very low after the long dry summer. My chosen spot wasn't any different in looks to any other swim for 500yards in either direction but there was fish showing within casting range so that was good enough for me!

I fished two maggot bolt feeder rigs at around 50yards range and the plan was to keep recasting both rods every 5mins until a good bed of bait was built up and hopefully the roach came on the feed.

Fortunately it didn't take long to start getting bites and soon the fish were coming thick and fast. I was really pleased with the average size aswell with most fish being between 6-12oz and a nice sprinkling of pound plussers chucked in for good measure.

I was playing the numbers game to try and snare a 2lber but there was just too many smaller samples in my swim. I ended up with somewhere around 30lb of roach I'd say with the biggest I weighed going 1lb5oz. I have no doubt that 2lbers exist in the lake but it'd take a lot of fishing to find one given just how stuffed the place is! A water I'll revisit with different tactics next time I feel.

Since the roach trip I've been pretty much 100% lure fishing or more specifically, Ultra light lure fishing. I met up with well known angler and lure fishing guru Steve Collett who has kindly been showing me the ropes with the whole U/L concept.

Tiny lures, fine wire hooks, pencil thin rods and miniature reels are all part and parcel of this style of fishing and some of the tips and edges that Steve has passed on have been real eye openers. Balanced tackle which allows you to see and feel even the shyest of bites is the key to getting the most out of U/L as is technique. After seeing Steve in action I realise what a newbie I am to lure fishing and how much scope I have to refine and improve my technique, it's like a hidden world has been opened up to me!

Another major thing which Steve has helped me to overcome is my reluctance to lure fish coloured water. I always had a mental block about chucking lures about in coloured water thinking if the fish can't see it then they won't take it, how wrong I was! An adjustment in technique and the confidence to keep plugging away was all that was needed and after witnessing Steve catch a zander in the most coloured water you could imagine I set about trying to catch one of my own.

In the end it took a couple of trips but catch one I did and, although it was small, I can't overstate the significance of the fish in terms of confidence building. I feel ready to take on the entire midlands canal network now! my next blank trip will certainly send me crashing back down to earth but there are exciting times ahead I feel.

 

 

 

 

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